5 Tips to Improve Your Next Novel Cover

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series

One of the things I’ve been working on recently is getting my cover-making work started up. I’ve been making covers for myself since 2011, but only recently started looking at it as a sideline, and thus have been honing my Photoshop skills and trying to practice every day. Not unexpectedly, this has been an eye-opening experience for me, not only as to the limits of the PS program, but also how the parameters I’m given make the possibilities for covers better or worse.

So my cover artist self has some tips to pass on to my writer self that will help make my next cover better.

Tip #1: Short words are better for titles

Starting your Series: Worldbuilding, Research, and… When to Stop

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series

Writers are caught in a world of conflicting priorities, exemplified by two axioms, one Portuguese, one Italian: Haste is the enemy of perfection and Perfection is the enemy of good

Like most things in life, it’s about the balance.

HERE I BLATHER ON ABOUT HOW I REACHED THAT CONCLUSION

When I first started writing my Golden City stories, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I planned a novelette of 15K words. I had an outline for a story set in 1900 Venice. I dove in and began writing… only to have the story tell me that Venice was not the right setting. After about 30 minutes of looking at European maps, I thought, Hey! I’ll set this in Portugal instead, and went on to finish the novelette.

Baking a Series from Scratch…

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series

Last time I posted here, I was asked by commenters to talk about how to start a series.That’s a huge topic, and it covers a handful of different quandaries.

As I look at it, there are two main areas:

1. How to PLAN a series, and

2. How to make yourself sit down and WRITE a series.

Now, my own series fall into two separate and fairly equal piles—ones I meant to be series, and ones I didn’t.In fact, most of the other writers I talked to about this topic agreed. Some series are planned, others just happen organically.

Easy Ways to Sell Signed Copies of Your Novel Online

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney
 
Part of the Indie Authors Series

I’ve been in this author game for a while, and it still surprises me when someone wants a signed copy of one of my books.

Signings, both at conventions and at bookstores, are often fraught things, with no one showing up at one signing when the next week twenty people stand at your table. For some of us writers, those public appearances are quite stressful. And while there are those among us who are even brave enough to rent a table at a convention and sell from there, I haven’t had the nerve to join those ranks yet. (Jaimie Engle talks about selling at an event here.)

As it is, I’m doing only a few appearances a year, so I can’t get very many signed copies out there anyway. And what about that nice person who can’t get to your signing?

3 Ways to Get Book Covers on a Shoestring Budget

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series 

JH: Another new indie author is joining the faculty this month! Please help me welcome J. Kathleen Cheney, who'll share her tips and thoughts on indie publishing this week every other month.

J. Kathleen Cheney taught mathematics ranging from 7th grade to Calculus but gave it all up for a chance to write stories. Her novella “Iron Shoes” was a 2010 Nebula Award Finalist. Her novel, The Golden City was a Finalist for the 2014 Locus Awards (Best First Novel). Dreaming Death (Feb 2016) is the first in a new world, with the books of The Horn coming out in 2017, and the sequels to Dreaming Death in 2018

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr |

Take it away JK...